


Strange & Stranger

by donteatmyfingerprints



Category: Life (TV), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Root/Dani Reese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:30:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donteatmyfingerprints/pseuds/donteatmyfingerprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crews had his little pet projects, and well, she had hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange & Stranger

Dani Reese didn’t know how it happened.

 

It had been months. Crews had his little pet projects, and well, she had hers. She’d noticed a change in the world. Something was different. The air in L.A. was tense with a new premise, something she could feel buzzing in the wind, but was never quite sure what it held.

 

She’d been restless and fidgety for months, searching endlessly on Google. She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for, but there was a murky hurricane coming, and Dani feels it in her bones. And then she met her.

 

Dani had been in a bar, a little quiet one with unassuming décor and low lighting. Few patrons came and left, and mostly it was filled with regulars, herself included. It was a little anchor she kept to herself; a reminder. Quitting was not about avoiding the alcohol and the drugs. It was about sitting there with the release right there in front of you, and not wanting to reach for it. It was her little tests for herself, her baby steps. This belonged to her, not Crews, not Davis, not Tidwell, not her father.

 

Dani had been sitting rigidly on the bar stool for almost an hour before she decided she’d resisted long enough. She supposed she should have felt proud of herself, but she didn’t. Just weary. Tired of fighting the urge to self-detonate. She got up, left a tip even though she bought nothing, and then she felt the prickling on the back of her neck like someone was watching her. She turned around, almost expecting Crews and his deplorable ability to always appear randomly, even in the most bizzare of situations.

 

The words died in her throat when she locked eyes with a woman standing in front of her whose stare was intense enough to burn. Dani was a cop, and her training kicked in subconsciously, checking the woman out. Long brown wavy hair, taller than she was, expensive heels, leather jacket, attractively sharp face. She didn’t look like a woman to be trifled with. Her head was tilted to one side, and she looked surprised and questioning all at the same time.

 

Dani felt a little disoriented, like she was supposed to recognize her, but she didn’t. She racked her brains for faces. Maybe an old classmate from school? From the academy?

 

Dani didn’t move still, as the woman opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind, eyes losing focus. Ten seconds later, Dani averted her eyes and was prepared to leave again when the stranger spoke.

 

“Let me buy you a drink.” Dani looked up again and the woman was smiling at her, and what was that look in her eyes? Curiosity?

 

“I don’t drink.”

 

“You’re in a bar.”

 

“Yeah, and I’m leaving.”

 

“Maybe you can buy me a drink then.”

 

The woman moved closer, into her personal space, hand coming up to rest on the bar top. Dani didn’t move. She seemed confident that Dani wasn’t going to leave, so she called the bartender’s attention and ordered a scotch.

 

“You can call me Root.” Dani raises her eyebrow in response, knowing that it wasn’t a real name. Her guard goes up. She’s a cop, her mind always darts to criminals first, especially for people that look like they don’t belong and use false names. She says nothing, then checks the time. She has nothing on today. The bartender comes back with the drink, and Dani makes a new decision.

 

“Beer,” is all she says.

 

Root tilts her head again and smiles, showing teeth. Dani resists the urge to roll her eyes, knowing how smug Root must be feeling.

 

Root was purring and dancing her legs up Dani’s calves all night, and it didn’t surprise them both when they ended up at Dani’s place. They’d barely made it through the door when Root pounced on her, the height difference making Dani feel all the more overwhelmed. Root had been warm, fierce, dominating, all teeth and tongue, sharp at the edges.

 

When she left she’d grinned brightly at the door and said, “Thanks for tonight, Dani.”

 

Dani had nodded, feeling content and sated, the mild haze of alcohol flowing pleasantly in her veins, letting Root show herself out.

 

It was only when she was falling asleep in the faint glow of dawn that she realized she’d never told Root her name.

 

She hadn’t thought much about Root that first time. One night stands were a usual for her, after all. But she remembers it because the next day, Crews had made a comment about her being in a good mood. She had scowled at him in return.

 

The second time she’d met Root, she’d been walking out from the department lift, and a bunch of feds had caught her attention. Her eyes darted to Crews, wondering again if he was in trouble. He had a penchant for it, she knows. She narrows her eyes at him, but he gives her a bewildered, innocent look which she doesn’t buy. She rolls her eyes. When she looks back to the feds, she finds that one of them looks familiar.

 

Root was decked out in a blazer and very office-like attire, and she was smirking knowingly at her across the floor. Dani frowns when she says something to the other feds and walks right over, her eyes never leaving Dani’s for even a second.

 

“You’re FBI?” Dani says disdainfully the moment Root reaches within earshot, feeling increasingly like she got played, wondering if this was some elaborate ploy to get to Crews again through her. She glances down at Root’s tag. Beside her, Crew smiles until his eyes disappears, and Dani feels irritated. He’s probably ecstatic at the notion of meeting a friend of hers.

 

“You could say that.” Root’s grin widens, and seems to contemplate her, eyes roving down and then back up. Dani crosses her arms. Then Root leans in to the side of her where Crew’s isn’t standing, and whispers into her ear.

 

“I’ll swing by tonight.” Dani moves back automatically, and Crew’s smile widens, but his eyes contain none of that spark that was there a moment ago.

 

“Is this woman bothering you, Reese?” Root turns to look at him for the first time, and she tilts her head again, which Dani has realized is a thing. Like she was calculating something. Evaluating. Dani has seen men back away from a cold smiling Crews, but Root is unfazed. If anything, she seemed even more smug, her grin wider, a blaze of challenge in her eyes.

 

From the corner of her peripheral vision, Dani sees the attention they are getting, and she really, really thinks that Crews should know better than to attract the attention of the feds right now while half the state of L.A. still thinks he is responsible for the Seybolt murders.

 

“It’s fine, Crews.” She gives Root a hard look, and turns and walks, knowing that Crews will be right behind her.

 

Root makes good her promise. The second time is even better than the first.

 

The next day, when Dani Reese reaches the office, she logs on straight to her computer and looks for one Augusta A King, FBI agent. There isn’t one. She searches for Root next, and nothing comes up either, but her phone abruptly starts ringing. It is an unknown number, and Dani ends the call on reflex. Five seconds later, it rings again. She frowns at her phone, feeling that buzz in the air again, like something was happening that the world was oblivious about. She picks up.

 

“Looking for me so soon?” If Dani is startled, she doesn’t show it.

 

“You’re not real FBI.”

 

“No, I suppose not.” Dani can hear her smile through the phone.

 

“Are you a con-artist?”

 

“Do you have money for me to steal?”

 

“Is this about Crews?”

 

“Your orange-haired pet? No, this isn’t about Charlie Crews.”

 

Dani doesn’t like the way Root says that last part, voice low and teasing. So she hangs up, irked. Root doesn’t call back.

 

She doesn’t know why, but she has the strongest feeling that the change in the world was related to Root. There was a storm brewing somewhere, and she couldn’t help but feel that Root was involved in this somehow. She trusts her instincts.

 

Dani tells herself that the reason why she was so irked is because Root was obviously a dodgy sort of character, and she was a cop. She is supposed to catch people like Root, and twice now she hadn’t made use of those opportunities, even though she knew in her gut that there was something different about Root. The way Root seemed to just know all this stuff. About her, about Crews. Either she was working a case or a very elaborate con, in which case, Dani knows Crews has got a lot of money tucked away. The next time she sees Root, Dani thinks, she’ll get some answers.

 

But the months pass and she doesn’t. Occasionally Root appears out of thin air, smelling differently every time, and they always end up in Dani’s house, a mess of sweaty limbs.

 

Dani pieces whatever she knows as much as she can together.

 

She imagines Root must be some sort of con-artist, because Root is evasive about her job, and always just _knows_ these things about her, her past, her preferences for coffee, where she was that day. She keeps waiting for the day Root will divert the attention to Crews, but it never comes. Dani even dared to think Root kept coming back for her.

 

And every time Root walks out the door, Dani remembers the handcuffs in her car, and knows she should be bringing Root in. For what exactly, she isn’t sure. But a woman like her is far from innocent. Not if the scars and wounds she’s found on the map of Root’s body are anything to go by.

 

Root was full of stories that Dani knows the endings of, but hasn’t a clue of the beginning. There were needle tracks on her skin, but Root wasn’t a junkie. Dani knows a junkie when she sees one. She has wounds that have been wrapped up and treated, but no explanation for how it got there. Once Dani had pulled on her hair, and watched Root hiss, more pain than pleasure. When she reached behind Root’s ear, Root had pushed her hand away, and returned a harder kiss.

 

“I have a new accessory. Don’t worry about it.”

 

Dani is not much of a talker, so she doesn’t ask.  She finds that Root likes her attention on her scars though, and tracing them with her lips wrings out the most appealing sounds from Root. Her fresh ones, Root likes more. She likes Dani to press on them a little, likes them to bleed through their bandages a bit, and Dani finds she wants nothing more than watching Root go wild under her.

 

Root stares at her a lot, and always seems on the cusp of saying something, but the words seem to fail her each time.

 

Dani also notices her strange aversion to phones. When they’re doing it, when they’re in the bedroom, somehow their phones are always outside. It could have been in the pocket of her pants, but somehow her pants would be on the floor, hapzardly strewn with their shirts and jackets, and their phones would be lying neatly outside on the table. Dani is sure that Root’s behind it. She figures if Root is really some sort of criminal or something, she would be wary of any evidence that could jeopardize her long-term goals, so Dani lets it lie.

 

Like all things detrimental to her, Dani Reese finds a new compulsion. 

 

Then one night, Root storms in unannounced, and Dani barely has time to ask how she got past her locks before Root tackles her on the stairs, hands sliding under her shirt immediately, her kiss harsh. She pushes her away, annoyed, but that only seems to spur Root on, and Root forcefully pushes her backward, up the stairs, shedding her own jacket and shoes on the way. They don’t make it to the bedroom. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Root had divested her of her clothes and had pushed her to the floor.

 

Root was all teeth and nails, biting and scratching at her, hot and unyielding in her single-minded attention on her. Root’s eyes burned with something like fury, watching her as she came apart. Dani feels disoriented and angry, angry at Root, angry at herself, angry that she didn’t know anything about Root and why she was feeling so dark tonight, so she pours that out in her mouth, her eyes, and her hands.

 

Root keeps her eyes closed when Dani takes her, and Dani cannot help but feel like Root isn’t really in the moment tonight, and she hears Crews’ ramblings of _these moments and the next_ in her head, so she stops through the heavy panting for a second. Root growls and kisses her harder, nipping her on the lip in protest and grinds her hips against Dani, urging her on. A fresh wound is jostled, and Root hisses.

 

“Are you imagining someone else?” Dani blurts out, annoyed. That seems to startle Root, and for a second Dani thinks she will deny it, even though her expression makes it quite clear now, and Dani’s chest tightens in something she cannot name. Then Root looks her dead in the eye, dark and serious.

 

“I was,” Root says, biting her lip. When they continue fucking, this time Root keeps her eyes opened and trained on Dani, hungry in cataloguing every sound and expression she manages to coax from her. Root was slow, deliberate; memorizing, a tangle of blood and sweat until the first rays of morning, and Dani knew this was the last time.

 

“Don’t try to find me. You’ll only get yourself killed.”

 

“I’m a cop,” Dani says automatically.

 

“Yes, and your searching on the Internet is how I found you in the first place, Dani.” Dani says nothing, and Root sighs.

 

“You aren’t wrong. There is a war coming, but one that you have no part in. You cannot help.”

 

“And you can?”

 

Root bores her eyes straight into Dani’s, long and intense, head tilted to the right. She’s doing that thing again, where she seems to be waiting for something. But all Dani sees is Root, and tries to memorize her mysterious stranger as much as Root had been doing all night.

 

“I must.”

 

She doesn’t see Root again, and ignores the ache in her belly and the tightness of her chest whenever she thinks of her. Crews helps in what little way her can, even though his constant nonsense about fruit is more annoying than helpful. But he squeezes these little euphemisms in his speeches, hiding beneath it things like _“are you okay?”_ and Dani knows her partner has got her back. Dani knows that her place is right here, between Crews and the rest of the world.

 

Dani Reese stays clean for real this time. She finds she doesn’t want her addictions anymore. She wraps them into a ball, all of them, a tall brunette with shadowy eyes in the middle of that supernova, and she throws them away.

 


End file.
